The approaches described in this section could be pursued but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Today numerous loyalty programs are used to encourage and incentivize customers to make more purchasing decisions. One of the ways to engage customers is to provide different discounts and free products or services by way of issuing coupons.
The coupons are paper tickets or electronic documents that can be redeemed for a financial discount or rebate when a product or service is purchased. Traditionally, the coupons are issued by manufacturers or by retailers to be used in retail stores as part of sales promotions. They are widely distributed through mail, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, and mobile devices such as cellular phones. In general, a customer can redeem a coupon by showing the coupon to a cashier at the time of purchase.
Delivery of printed paper coupons may be expensive for the marketer. In recent years, paperless coupons have been used by marketers or retailers. Such paperless coupons can be delivered via the Internet, e-mails, mobile messages like SMS, MMS, or the like. The coupons can be redeemed at merchants without the necessity of printing, as they can be shown to a cashier directly via a mobile device, smart phone, a tablet computer, and so forth.
However, the ubiquity of coupons has led to a decrease in their impact. Many customers do not wish to be on e-mail lists to receive advertising coupons on a regular basis. On the other hand, while travelling, consumers may wish to know whether any of the merchants located in the nearby area offer any promotional coupons. For example, when consumers travel to a new city or district, they may wish to know what promotional offers are available at the time within the nearby area for a lunch or dinner. Searching for this information on the Internet may be lengthy and inconvenient.
Moreover, even when customers are in possession of coupons in paper or electronic format, they may not have a specific coupon at hand upon visiting a certain store, restaurant, hotel, car rental office, and so forth. As a result, many customers do not actively use the coupons they possess.